I have been a customer of Hathway Internet since July 2006(customer code: 116196). I’ll disclose what I have gone through during last few days.
Faulty Billing: Sometime back in 2007, my 1.5 GB worth of download limit disappeared in a matter of 10 days. I was out of town for a good 7 days of them. Not sure what these guys were up to.
Connection Transfer: I shifted my premises on Friday, Aug 29 2008 and gave an email communication and written letter to get the connection shifted. I took them a good 1 week to change the connection, though the SLA mentions it to be 2 days.
Plan Change: I used to have Lifeway Monthly Plan(256 kbps, 1 month, 400 MB), I bought a new plan(Expressway, 4 GB, 1 MBPS, 4 months) on 10:30 AM Monday Sept 08 at the HSR Layout center so that I could work from home for sometime.
The collection person told me that it would get activated in 24 hours. My old plan expired around 10 AM on Sept 09, I asked the renewals department to configure the new plan around 11 AM. They said it would be done in 30 minutes. It took me at least 4 calls and repeated follow-up with renewals team and I got the internet working by 1:30 PM.
Internet Outage: However at 2:30 PM on Sept 09, the internet connection again went blank. I called up the helpdesk atleast 10 time thereafter. I got used to them giving some vague answers and false turn-around time(30 mins to 2 hours). The internet never worked yesterday and I gave up my plans to work from home.
My wife again called-up the helpdesk around 9 AM the next day, and they started with the same fix time of 45 minutes(I wonder is that a magic bullet for all cures?), and then they realized that we have been calling for so many times since the day before, then they promised a princely 7 days for the fix.
The internet is still not working, I repent having paid Rs 1124 for their "expressway" or should I call "doom-way" plan.
The worst part in these episodes has been the callousness of the customer care staff. They are pathetic in responding aptly to a customer’s compliant. They have the same answers to all issues and worst they will never reveal their manager’s phone number or transfer the call to him. Also, there won’t be any effort from these losers to call the customer and apologize for the delay/lack of service(Modern-age CRM?).
All this baffles me, how on earth is Hathway still in business.